Christmas Eve, December 24th. 1st Samuel 16:7. 1st Samuel 16 verse7. And that verse reads, “For the Lord does not see as man sees. For a man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” One more time. For the Lord does not see as a man sees. For a man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

Wow. Number one, friends, this is all about character. Number one, it’s about character. Number two, it’s about the fact that almost number two should be number one. But in the context of 1 Samuel, number one, it’s all about character. Number two, it’s about the ability that God has which we don’t.

And that is the Lord does not see as man sees. God doesn’t have the eyes, the view, the limitations that we have. He sees perfectly. He sees perfectly in the present, perfectly in the past. He sees perfectly in the prophetic. It’s amazing. And then he goes on to say, “For man looks at the outward appearance.” And we are suckers for that, aren’t we? We look to the outside and we make judgments based upon outside appearance.

Why? Because our character uh doesn’t function properly. It doesn’t function the way God designed it to function. our charact our processing um is is has been messed up because of the fall. But uh the way God sees things and the way man sees things is something completely absolutely different. And thank God the latter end of the verse says, “But the Lord looks at the heart.